A New Coat of Paint
by Balsam
Summary: Ginny, a 6th year, goes to the new bar trying to escape Hogwarts and the kids who go there. Her plans for a sorrowful night alone are spoiled when she meets her enemy and he insists on buying her a drink or two. Not a Ginny/Draco ship. T for drugs/alcohol


Ginny felt goose bumps rising on her legs as the wind whipped though her short dress robes. They weren't new, like the ones Zinnia Parkinson traipsed around in. Ginny had cut the hem of Ron's old purple robes. A few colour changes here and some new lace there and the same robes that made Padma Patil raise her eyebrows at her Yule Ball date were raising eyebrows of a different kind at The Vanishing Cabinet. Sometime in the summer before Ginny's sixth year, a new club had opened in Hogsmeade. It was tough to say what excuses it offered Snape—Ginny refused to think of him as the Headmaster—as to how it made its money, but it was clear that, without the Hogwarts students sneaking out most weekends to visit it, it would have gone under very quickly.

That night, a Wednesday, wasn't a popular one with the Hogwarts crowd, though. Ginny needed to get away from the school and the kids there. She'd been with Harry in the Chamber of Secrets. She'd met Voldemort and called him by his real name. She'd loved him—both of them. Yet she still had to do her homework. It was a bad joke and she needed a strong drink.

Ginny stepped through the darkened glass door into the smoky bar. There were only a few empty stools and many of the booths were crowded already. It looked like she was wrong to judge the clientele so quickly. There was a hum in the air: the buzz of conversation and whispered promises. The ceiling was painted and charmed to always show the full moon, lacy with the reddish silhouettes of skeletal tree branches, on a deep red sky. She slid onto an empty barstool halfway down the bar. In the three months since she'd started coming to the Cabinet, she'd become much more graceful with this move. If she concentrated, she could manage a carefully controlled flash of flesh as she hoisted her short frame up.

"A drunken pumpkin, Fate. You know I want top shelf." She might be too poor to afford good dress robes, but she wasn't so poor she'd skimp tonight. Lafayette, the barkeep, obligingly took down the bottle of Ogden's Old Firewhiskey, poured out a double and topped up the tumbler with pumpkin juice. "How'd you know I'd want two?" asked Ginny, only half seriously.

"I'd be a poor bartender if I didn't know what you're looking for when you come in on a Wednesday with barely a trace of make-up," he replied, placing another shot of whiskey in front of her.

"Aw, Fate, I didn't know you cared so much about my make-up." Ginny gave him a half-hearted smile before downing the shot.

"My compliments, madam. That one's on me."

Ginny watched Fate idly as he was called to the end of the bar by a new customer.. The man to her right stood up and walked away. Ginny watched the smoke dancing above her head, sent into mad curls and eddies by the sudden opening of the door. She looked at the Quidditch updates flashing along the wall behind the bar. She marvelled at how anyone could be thinking of Quidditch these days. A rich woollen cloak brushed her arm as a man sat down on to her right. She turned her head instinctively to assess the newcomer. Was he a threat? Should she draw her wand?

"Sorry to have disturbed you." Ginny looked up into the stranger's face. Draco Malfoy looked back. His face was a little different, but she could tell right away who it was. Before she could say anything, Malfoy introduced himself, "Anthony Montague," he said extending his hand.

"And I suppose you want me to be your Capulet?" Ginny answered. Draco was puzzled as the reference to the muggle playwright flew right over his head, but he always had been good at bluffing.

"If you're desperate, I'm sure you could fill the role adequately." Ginny had no answer to this aside from the obvious in-your-dreams eye roll. "So what drives you to a drink alone on a Wednesday night, Miss…Weasley, I assume?"

"Luckily, my lack of drinking companions isn't a result of being the most hated wizard in the village. And it's been three, not one." Ginny taunted, raising an eyebrow.

"My dear, I think you must have me confused. Shall we take this delightful conversation somewhere that accords us a little more privacy?" Malfoy laid a handful of gold on the bar and asked Fate for the bottle of Ogden's and two shot glasses. Carrying the set, he took two steps towards the booth in the back corner of the room. He paused and looked over his left shoulder. "Are you coming, Weasley, or are you just going to drool as you watch me walk away?"

Ginny had been admiring him, but was too practiced to let it show. "The only reason I'd watch was to make sure you were really leaving. Doesn't look like it's my night tonight." As she slid off the barstool, she felt the gentle pressure of Fate's hand on her arm.

"You know that guy, Gin? Wouldn't want to lose my favourite drink to some stranger and a half-bottle of Firewhiskey," whispered Lafayette.

"Thanks, Fate, but I'll be OK. He's just a guy I used to know. No harm in him, I'm sure. Not for me, anyway." Ginny gave him a confident wink and followed Malfoy to the booth. She wasn't surprised to see the shot glasses already filled, but she was a little taken aback by the expression on Malfoy's face as she slid into the distressed red banquette.

"I am the most hated man in a two hundred kilometre radius," said Malfoy by way of greeting before tipping back his shot glass.

"Yeah," snorted Ginny, "If we're lucky." She downed hers.

Malfoy chuckled darkly. "Don't you get tired of all the cynicism? It's so…exhausting. I have to use a false name and alter my appearance just to go to my local bar. I'm even playing for the winning team. I can't imagine what it must be like to be fighting this war and losing it! I, at least, have some assurance…" Ginny saw the fear behind is irony. "I won't do it any more. I don't want to fight it. Not tonight. What do you say, Ginny? Let's put a new coat of paint on this lonesome old town."

Ginny let out a bark of laughter. "Set 'em up, Malfoy. We'll be knocking 'em down."

Malfoy obliged. "Come on. You're wearing a dress, baby, I'm wearing a tie. We'll laugh at that old bloodshot moon." He looked up at the bewitched ceiling as he slid Ginny another shot.

"To the moon!" Ginny toasted, "In that burgundy sky." Their glasses landed together on the table with a small thunk.

"You keep in touch with Potter, still?" sneered Malfoy.

"Yeah, when he's not too busy destroying your boss piece by piece."

"Do you honestly think he loves you, Weasel?"

"What could you ever hope to tell me about love, Ferret-boy? It's not like you've ever encountered it before." Malfoy mumbled something half-heartedly in response. "Didn't catch that Malfoy." Ginny baited as he mumbled on. She silently cast a mild sonorus spell to hear his mumbling.

"Just because it wasn't recipro—" Malfoy stopped dead halfway through. "You dirty little vixen!" He tried to land a jelly-legs jinx—the bane of wizard drinkers everywhere—but Ginny had already protected herself with a shield charm. The jelly-legs nearly hit Malfoy on the rebound.

"Don't test me, Malfoy. You know I could jinx you into oblivion, Firewhiskey or no."

"A truce then," conceded Malfoy. Until a more sober day.

"So who was she? Not Pansy, that's obvious enough. Even if you weren't likely betrothed at your birth—"

"I thought we'd called a truce, Weasley!" snarled Malfoy.

"That was just on jinxing!" Ginny retorted. Switching to a sickly-sweet Pansy voice, Ginny continued, "Oh Draco, I had no idea you were so lonely. You always seemed so handsome and strong. You can always come to me for comfort."

Malfoy had to admit she was spot on. A chuckle rose out of him, helped in its escape by another shot of whiskey. "Here we are, Weasley, talking of our lost loves. Both of them off fighting the same thing, but lost to us for such different reasons."

Ginny's naturally warm eyes became piercingly cold. "Harry is not lost to me, Malfoy," she said quietly.

"Have another drink, Weasley. All your scribbled love dreams are lost." This time he just slid the bottle across the table. She poured herself a shot, downed it, and set them each up with another.

"Mine are lost, but yours were thrown away," she retorted. She expected a sharp reply, but Draco just sighed and leaned back into the bench.

"Yes, here amidst the shuffle of an overflowing day. Even if she hadn't been a Gryff—a goody two—" Malfoy looked over at Ginny to see how much she had guessed. Luckily for him, Ginny was busy staring into her own glass. "Well, even if we'd been sorted together, it never would have worked. Our love would have needed a transfusion…" He chuckled again, but this time without any mirth. It was an empty, lonely sound and for the first time in her life, Ginny was both afraid of and sorry for this boy.

"Let's shoot it full of wine!" She cried. Who was he, Malfoy, to bring up Harry, to darken her drinking with his own tales of unrequited love. Another drink. That was what she needed. Let the fire in the whiskey burn out her memories of her best friend, her brother and her boy, her Harry. All gone. All lost to her.

"Weasley, all we have is whiskey."

"That'll do! Top me up!"

Heck, thought Malfoy, these days were dark, even for his tastes. He really needed to lighten up. "You know, Weasley, I think you're right," he said, as he poured them each another one. "Fishing for a good time—"

"Starts with throwing in your line." She finished the famous saying for him.

They clinked glasses. As Ginny tipped her head back, she looked up at the full moon and wondered what Slytherin Common Room looked like.

**A/N: Credit where credit is due. This fic was inspired by the song New Coat of Paint by Tom Waits. I make no creative claim to the song. I've fit all the lyrics into the dialogue between Ginny and Draco. It's set in the Harry Potter universe and uses characters created by JKRowling. I make no creative claim to them. I just mixed them up in interesting ways. You start with a character study for another story and you end up with Draco taking Ginny home. : ) Hope you enjoyed.**


End file.
